


Kissed with Heat

by Rhys (rhyssj)



Category: NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-04-19
Updated: 2001-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-07 04:36:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14073027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhyssj/pseuds/Rhys
Summary: JC questions the heat.





	Kissed with Heat

Mississippi is the type of damp heat JC hates. He's sticky and suffering and not even sure why he's here. He knows, of course, that he's at Lance's house, but beyond that, he doesn't have a clue. But it's hot and sweaty and dim, with the sun setting and the world not getting any cooler. 

"I'm not entirely sure why you're here," Lance admits, bringing out iced tea and setting a glass beside JC's spread hand while he presses his palm to the wood, in tune with nature. JC looks up. "I mean, I don't mind you being here. I just. Don't understand." 

JC shrugs and drinks his iced tea. 

There are no answers. 

~~~ 

Lance's house is from a catalogue. JC doesn't doubt that Lance bought showrooms already assembled and paid someone to decorate while they toured. The order and prettiness of the entire place is unsettling to JC, and the heat bothers him. 

JC misses air-conditioning. 

Lance returns in the late afternoon with pizza and beer, watching JC, waiting to be let in on the secret. JC would tell him if he knew, but he just doesn't know why he's spending his afternoons on Lance's porch, doing nothing but sweating. 

Lance is continually glowing, skin sparkling with the kiss of extreme heat. Lance looks like he fits in whereas JC's hair drapes over his eyes and obscures his view. Lance wears wife-beaters and khakis and walks around without shoes, and JC watches how he moves when he strides through the grass, thinking. 

When Lance stops and looks at him, waiting for the explanation, JC adverts his view and looks elsewhere. 

There's nothing to explain. Yet. 

~~~ 

That night, the crickets are loud, obnoxious, and JC can't sleep. He's dreadfully hot, and he's in bed naked, without sheets, just lying on his back. When Lance knocks, JC says -- "come on in, Lance"-- and doesn't bat an eye when Lance stops and trips over his own feet. 

"Uh," Lance says, "am I interrupting something?" 

"No," JC says because he really isn't, and JC realises Lance is blushing bright, embarrassed, but JC can't help from arching his back, rolling his hips. He feels sexual. Hot. "Did you need something?" 

Lance blinks and steps back. "Why are you here?" 

"I don't know," JC replies, his fingers dragging over his belly, "why am I?" 

Lance says nothing and leaves. 

~~~ 

The next day, JC spends in the grass, dancing around with his arms over his head, toes dipping into the moist ground. He feels sublime and sensual and thinks he must be beautiful and alive, more than ever before. 

Lance watches from the porch, nursing a glass of rye. 

JC dances for hours, rough, worn jeans hanging from his slim hips, dipped so low the line of his ass peeks out over the band of his jeans, and he knows this. He also knows that Lance's eyes follow every step he takes, and JC feels incredible. 

But, as the dark falls and JC turns back, Lance is gone. 

~~~ 

Lance is talking to Justin on the phone, and JC is lying in the grass, back pressing into the soft dirt. In his head, he's writing songs about lust and sex and dirty things that make him writhe, and he thinks, just once, he'll write one of them down and be a star. 

It's still so hot, and JC wonders if it ever rains. It feels like it will, the air is so heavy and wet, but he doubts it. It'll just taunt him with the idea of what it feels like to be cooled with water. Remembering the old basin in Lance's shed, JC drags it out and fills it with the garden hose. 

Stripping down, he climbs into the tub, sinks into it. Lance is watching him again, and JC stares back, an idle hand tracing his neck before dancing over his chest, palming a nipple, which stands hard and erect at the touch. 

JC is beginning to suspect he might know why he's here. 

But Lance goes back in the house, door slamming shut. 

~~~ 

"Jayce," Lance says. It's late at night. 

"Hmm?" JC replies and stretches on the bed, watching the rain drip down the windows. There's a sheet across his waist, and his dick peeks out from under the white cloth, limp and nestled against his thigh. 

"Are you okay? Like, really?" 

JC stretches his belly, pulls it taut and tight, and the sheet slips down. His cock is getting heavier, fuller, with every breath, and Lance watches it, twists his hands into his pants. JC holds out his arm and whispers, "you can touch." 

"Why would I --?" Lance starts shakily, "why would I want to?" 

So JC touches himself instead, runs a hand over his cock and pulls at it, slowly between his fingers, and Lance turns away, pressing a hand to his face. JC can't stop, doesn't want to, and Lance leaves. 

JC feels full and alive with need. 

~~~ 

JC knows that Lance could send him home if he wanted to, knows that Lance knows JC would go willingly, but Lance continues to let JC exist in Mississippi, watches him constantly while JC walks around in too-small jean shorts, sweating. 

JC must be a sight, all red and wet and skinny. JC imagines that Lance isn't as blind as he pretends, so JC shifts and pulls at his shorts, drawing them tight against his ass, and rolls his shoulders, shuddering with imagination. It's so horribly hot here. 

"Lance," JC says, in the silence, and knows Lance hears him. 

JC isn't entirely surprised when Lance stops behind him, isn't really startled when a hand touches tentatively to his back, isn't at all horrified when a tongue licks from the edge of his jeans to his neck, a damp point tracing the dent of his spine. JC merely leans back and shivers, grabbing hold of the hands Lance has on JC's narrow hips when they try to pull away, apologise. 

JC turns and kisses Lance, lips spread against a closed mouth, and Lance eventually opens, shaking with eyes pressed tightly shut like he can't bear to see, like it hurts to acknowledge that JC is there, touching him, wanting him. 

"Look at me," JC whispers, fingers on Lance's neck. 

"No." 

"I came here for you," JC adds. It's getting colder. 

"I really can't do this, all right? I really. Have to go." 

JC watches as Lance runs inside then he touches his back, which is still wet and scarred from Lance's tongue. Still kissed with heat. 

JC remembers now why he's here. Or he mostly does because it's like a dream. 

Lance. 

~~~ 

JC phones Justin, asks if he remembers what happened that last night they were all together, but all Justin knows is Lance was really drunk, and so was JC, and they disappeared together. The next morning, Lance was already on the plane back to Mississippi, and JC was too hungover to remember his own name. 

JC remembers someone saying -- "I love you" -- but isn't sure who said it. Maybe it was him, JC realises, or maybe Lance. It doesn't really matter because JC's here now, trying to figure out what happened, why he's sweating blood and lounging like a cat in tall, rough grass. 

JC thinks now they must have slept together, him and Lance. They must have fucked in a cold, air-conditioned room, and that's why Lance's tongue felt so familiar on his back, why he shivered to feel it. But he doesn't remember. Not for sure. 

JC gets up, unfolds his body and walks to Lance, who's sitting on the porch, drinking amber rye. "We need to talk," JC says quietly and settles next to him, on the swing that wavers gently in the hot breeze. "We need to talk about why I'm here." 

Lance nods but looks like he might cry. 

JC thinks about the words to say, desperately wants a song, but ends up whispering -- "I love you" -- instead, touching the inside of Lance's thigh in an deeply intimate manner. Lance shifts but doesn't pull away, and JC almost remembers. 

Does remember. 

JC said it first that night, blurted it out and kissed Lance all at once, but Lance froze and tried to push him away, saying -- "I'm not. I don't. I. Okay" -- and giving into it, not as drunk as JC, already tense with regret. 

JC remembers, too, how Lance left the next morning, crying. 

"I love you," JC repeats, twines their fingers together. 

And Lance nods. 

"I'm in love with you," JC adds, like it isn't clear, "I wasn't that drunk." 

Lance bites his lip, cries a little. "Yes, you were." 

"I remember now," JC insists, "I remember it all." Though he doesn't, not really. He remembers the beginning, the ending, but doesn't remember the middle, doesn't remember how their bodies danced together, sweated together. "And I'm sober now." 

Lance blinks. "What?" 

JC tugs on Lance's hand, helps him stand and hugs him tightly, kissing his neck. "Come with me," JC whispers, pulls him into the house. "Be with me," JC whispers, and Lance goes willingly though his palms are sweaty and cold. 

The stairs creak as they walk up them, and Lance's room is as perfect and pretty as the rest of the house. The bed is huge and unmade, white sheets and a puffy duvet hanging half on the ground. JC smiles, smooths his hand over Lance's cheek, and he begins to undress, arching out of his worn jeans and climbing onto the bed. 

Lance watches, wipes his eyes dry then removes his own clothes, shaking. JC waits patiently and lies down, holds his arms out so Lance slides into them, heavy and warm on top of JC's body. They kiss a bit, tentative pressing of lips, and JC bends his knee, lays his leg across the back of Lance's thigh. 

It's familiar, the grind of Lance's body, and Lance's nervousness is just as familiar, that way in which he's afraid to touch. JC whispers to him a lot while they kiss and rub, assures him it's all right, that it's okay, that he loves him so much. It hurts. 

Lance fights a bit, shakes his head, when JC grabs a tube of hand lotion, squeezes it into his palm and touches Lance, slicking him up, but JC just whispers -- "I love you. I want this" -- and Lance calms down, though he's still shaking and his eyes are watery. 

"You're so beautiful," JC whispers, "I love you so much." 

Lance closes his eyes and nods painfully, like it hurts to believe that JC's telling the truth but says, "I love you, too." JC aches inside when he hears it and kisses Lance deeply, spread open as Lance slowly, slowly slips inside. 

They fit; JC knew they would. 

~~~ 

The next morning, Lance cries but doesn't leave, and says he's afraid of hell, that he isn't sure he can do this, and he's so sorry for leaving that morning, but he's so afraid of eternal damnation. They do terrible things to people like them there, he confesses between breathy sobs, his minster tells him about it often. 

JC kisses him deeply, swallows the pain, and says, "if it was wrong, I wouldn't have remembered. If it was wrong," JC says, "I would have let you go." JC touches Lance's back, strokes it until Lance relaxes. "But I didn't. I won't." 

Lance nods, bows his head into JC's neck, and they lie there for hours, talking and laughing a bit, and kissing when they want to because they can. And they're so deeply in love that JC can forget he's sweating, sticky all over from the heat. 

JC couldn't imagine being any other way.


End file.
